


Now, And At The Hour of Our Death

by acquaintedwithvice



Category: Trinity Blood
Genre: F/M, One Shot, Robot Sex, Robot/Human Relationships, Romance, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-13
Updated: 2018-05-13
Packaged: 2019-05-06 02:14:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14631965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acquaintedwithvice/pseuds/acquaintedwithvice
Summary: "I am the Duchess of Milan's gun." -Tres Iqus,"I Wanna Be Your Dog"Caterina summons Tres in the dark hours of the morning. What do you give, in return for salvation?Playlist: https://8tracks.com/virtueofvice/now-and-at-the-hour-of-our-death





	Now, And At The Hour of Our Death

**Author's Note:**

> _Hail Mary, full of grace_   
>  _The Lord is with thee_   
>  _Blessed art thou among women_   
>  _And blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus_   
>  _Holy Mary, mother of God_   
>  _Pray for us sinners_   
>  _Now and at the hour of our death._

"Father Tres."

His regeneration cycle was interrupted in the dead of night, pitch black of his rooms beneath the Palace penetrated easily by the infrared night mode of his vision sensors. His chambers - little more than a cellar, equipped with a minimum of furnishings and his own scant belongings - were empty save for himself and the Vatican guard lingering in the doorway. The uniformed man raised his hand in greeting, hesitant when he spotted the red beam of light on his chest that indicated the android was looking at him. His human eyes could not see in the dark, and took many things on faith. "Father, the Duchess has sent for you."

"Understood." The red light flickered out as Tres shut his eyes, performing the internal processes necessary to disengage from the hub that restored his artificial body and mind.

When he entered the room, she offered no greeting. She didn't ask him to take a seat or thank him for coming. She didn't treat him as if he were a person; with all the confusing clutter of unprocessed data that came along with it. If gratitude were an emotion he could feel, he would feel it for her. "I've been looking over the Professor's reports, and what little remains of your hapless creator's files. I am given to understand that you are outwardly a true facsimile of a man?" The question, a slight upturn in her calm tone, was the only indicator that she required an answer.

Tres glanced around her chambers, to which he had been summoned at 0300 hours. Calculations raced through the posterior portion of his central processor, but found insufficient data to explain his presence there. "Positive, members of the HC series were designed to resemble a human male in every way. The external components of my model's design were considered necessary to maintain cover while engaged in reconnaisance. However, programming lacked the necessary sophistication." He recited the lines as rote, as if he had been programmed with a built-in owner's manual. The perfect weapon. The perfect spy. Obedient to the last, Adam before Eve.

The Duchess looked thoughtful, one long fingertip pressed lightly to her lower lip. "That's quite interesting." But she did not appear to find it interesting. Her eyelids did not open wider, cursory scans revealed no elevation in pulse rate or endorphin levels. He decided she must be employing what was called rhetoric, and continued listening silently, expressionless.

"Tres; is there anything you like?"

Her question, without context, caused a momentary hiccup in his data processing and he blinked. "Negative. I am not designed for enjoyment."

"Come now Tres; your programming has been expanded several times since you joined the AX program. I'm sure you must have discovered at least one thing you enjoy." Now her pupils widened slightly, her tone slightly elevated. He inferred from this physiological data that she wished him to answer in the affirmative. The prime directive of his programming was clear on this point. He wanted to please her - always, to please her - and so blurted the first thing that his file search brought up.

"I enjoy birds."

"...Birds?"

"Positive. Their songs are mathematically symmetrical and distinctive in both rhythm and tone. Flight patterns are efficient and demonstrate economy of movement. I... like them." The words sounded awkward in his mouth, distorted, as if he had not been built to say them.

Caterina seemed pleased. "Birds." The smile curving the edges of her rosepetal pink lips seemed almost whimsical, gently amused.

 _And serving you._ The file appeared, ready for transmission to his vocal processors, but he discarded it as corrupted data. The Duchess had no need for such arbitrary, redundant information.

"I want you to assimilate this data." She informed him, handing him a flash drive. He picked up the slim bit of technology and examined it for a label (there was none, it was sleek and new) before plugging it without hesitation into the port concealed at the base of his skull. His last cached image before upload was of the Duchess observing him, lower lip bitten in a gesture of human anxiety for some reas-

_-w h i t e-_

For a moment all was white, and he stood still as the file uploaded into his memory banks, was decompressed, sorted and stored. His CPU examined each file as it was opened, absorbing and cataloguing the data as it was neatly filed away. He was a machine, designed to absorb information without passing personal judgments on it, but the files... Did not seem to be related to his work with the AX Division. Series after series of images, still and in motion, ran through his visual processors and long strings of text formatted themselves into a comprehensive and highly organized treatise on the various acts of human pleasure and potential procreation.

When the upload was complete, he removed the drive, blinking only once, and returned it to the Duchess, who was watching him expectantly. "Is the data transfer complete?"

"Affirmative." He replied, and hesitated for 2.8 seconds, an eternity for a man who never hesitates. "What is my mission, Duchess of Milan?"

The Cardinal looked at him, eyes wider than standard by two millimeters and epidermis slightly flushed - _blushing_. The word was blushing. His visual scanners focused in the dim light, artificial irises expanding and contracting in a quest for further data with which to quantify the unfamiliar situation. She glanced over his shoulder, checking the heavy mahogany door as if ensuring her safety. Tres decided to set her mind at ease.

"The perimeter is secure, Duchess of Milan." He informed her. "I am yours to command. What is my mission?" He pressed, noting her gaze slide back to him, small smile pulling at the corners of her mouth again.

Caterina took a deep breath, inhalation expanding her ribs 10% above standard capacity. "I want you to use what you've learned. On me."

Tres blinked. After doing so, his central processing unit had still failed to complete its calculations, so he did so again - a nearly unprecedented display of emotion. What would a human male feel in these circumstances? Surprise? Pride? ... _Lust?_ The word was unfamiliar, something he had studied in the abstract but never experienced - a strange country he had heard about but never visited. He did not possess the capacity for such feelings, or at least he had never yet experienced them. And yet, his prime directive was again inviolable. He existed to serve her. To please her. It was his primary mission - the manner in which he pursued that goal was of no import.

"Yes, your Grace."

Calculating her weight and his trajectory with an effortlessness only a man of steel could manage, he lifted the Duchess in his arms and bore her across the stone-floored chamber to her large four-poster, depositing her upon the scarlet, baroque-embroidered coverlet. Visual scans confirmed her pupils dilating and her chest rising and falling in shallow, rapid breaths. _Mission underway. Progress report: Satisfactory._

He studied her for what seemed like an interminable pause; visual scanners taking a thorough sweep of his mistress, from golden crown to slender feet demure in their silk slippers. He analyzed her softly parted lips, the spots of high color on her fine cheekbones, long lashes framing wide blue eyes. Finally she spoke, creating a break in his analysis. "Tres?"

Her tone evinced stress, nervousness; an emotion he had never seen her wear. Bracing himself over her supine form - his metallic weight would crush her - he cupped her face in one hand, her flushed cheek warm against his synthetic skin even through the white gloves he invariably wore. "Request pending, Duchess of Milan." He spoke softly, the sensation of her very human warmth quietly occupying his central processor, causing the pump in his torso responsible for the flow of life-sustaining fluid to cycle more rapidly in response. "Initiating mission - close your eyes, Lady Sforza."

She hesitated but complied, fingers winding into his uniform and curling tight. "Tres, please... Call me Caterina."

He bowed his head, sensors absorbing the scent of her skin, sage and amber; the ebb and flow of her heartbeat loud to his sensitive ears. A _noblesse oblige_ of the senses, drawing him inexorably nearer. The word came out of its own volition, unbidden from his memory banks - "Caterina..."

She uttered a soft whine, fingers winding tighter in his robes, and he closed the distance, bringing his lips to her throat. His kiss was cool, skating down the line of her jugular with an ease that belied his inexperience; but his mouth robbed her fluttering pulse point of its warmth; internal systems adapting and pressing hot against her vulnerable skin. He calculated this fragility, this human softness, and pressed his teeth with 1/160th available pressure to the gentle curve at the base of her neck. The woman moaned, helpless beneath the mounting sensation; spine arching gracefully to present her naked throat and press her slender form against his own and he... _Wanted._  Eyes snapping open, he sensed the rapid cycling - his synthetic heart, redoubling its efforts. The network of delicate sensors, layered beneath his artificial skin and calibrated for heat and pressure, overloaded his central processor with data both unfamiliar and overwhelming. She pressed against him, fragile human body needy and warm, and he felt... He _felt._.

"Tres? ...Are you alright?"

And he realized he had paused, overwhelmed by the sudden influx of indecipherable data. "I... I..." He blinked, uncommonly frustrated; vocal processors inadequate to the task. "You are very beautiful, Duchess... Caterina."

She blushed then, rosepetal pink creeping down her neck prettily as she turned her face to the side, unable to meet his gaze. He wondered vaguely if he was blushing as well; visual scans of her soft lips calling up a sensation that must have been longing. Suddenly the complexities of his compatriots, the conflicting and irrational _emotions_  that seemed to govern their lives, made sense - the unfamiliar but easily identifiable rush of desire mobilizing him like a puppet on strings. He cradled her head in his hands, gloved fingertips at the base of her skull gentle but insistent as he pressed his lips to hers. _A kiss._ His first ever; and it halted his central processor in its tracks, lips parting on the inhalation of her essence and his vocal processors slipped from his control, a low sound escaping him - a moan, the primal utterance entirely unfamiliar in his own voice yet unmistakable. Her tongue traced his lips, tentatively welcoming, and he met the intrusion greedily; for a moment only a man.

The cardinal red nightrobe she wore, richly embroidered at the hem and parting in a lush fall of satin around her long legs, was a striking contrast against her fair skin - bearing a faint violet bruise where his mouth had sealed over her throat, teeth leaving their proprietary mark. Gloved fingertips sure as only sufficient data could make him, he tugged at the sash holding the robe closed, the knot sliding free in his grip. She gasped and the fabric parted with a silken sliver as he cast the sash aside, exposing her body to his visual scans. He had seen such sights before, in the marble reliefs and graceful sculptures that even now decorated the Holy City - but nothing like this. The object of his worship was laid bare beneath him, the soft flush that had pinked her cheeks spreading down over her collarbone; breasts full and creamy and tipped with dusky rose, begging for touch. Carefully, calibrating precise pressure, he cupped the lush fullness in one gloved hand, thumb stroking gently. His lips, softly parted, exhaled warm as he nuzzled her soft skin, questing mouth first gentle, then more insistent as he flicked his tongue over the delicate peak. Catherina gasped, breathing rapid, and her hands - delicate and drowning in her voluminous sleeves - rose to encircle the back of his neck and draw him nearer.

"Tres, please..."

Physiologically speaking, there was no reason for him to shudder. The metal alloy and hydraulic systems that powered his body did not respond to stimuli as human skeletal muscle did. It was an illogical and unnecessary involuntary response. For all that, the sound of his designation uttered like a prayer on his goddess' lips set him to trembling, a soft sigh huffing out against her naked needy skin. "Yes... Yes, your Grace."

Caress bearing something like regret, he abandoned the riches that had so captivated his attention and journeyed southward, gloved hands tracing the slender curve of her hips, fingertips skimming over her taut belly and making her quiver as he pressed kisses in a line from her narrow ribs to the prominent sweep of her hipbone. He pressed his nose into the soft, neatly trimmed thatch of golden curls, nuzzling here as well with equal parts scientific curiosity and a hunger to please. Above him, Caterina bit down on the heel of her hand, long fingers hiding her flushed features and stifling the moan that threatened to escape. Tres paid no mind to this development save a quick glance to ensure his mistress' wellbeing; touch sweeping up her thighs and parting them gently, thumbs pressing a line up the tender skin along the inner curve as he knelt between them. Letting the information he had absorbed guide his gestures, he removed his gloves at last, pressing a fingertip between his lips to wet it with the tip of his tongue. Glancing upwards once again, he stroked her sensitive flesh, touch gliding easily over slick heat. When Caterina whimpered, her thighs pressing together in instinctive hesitation; he leaned forward, coaxing her like a flower or a complex equation he needed to solve. He braced her legs over his broad shoulders, keeping her open to his minstrations. Though she covered her face, hiding her nakedly desperate expression from his gaze, her scent and the tremble in her limbs spoke volumes. Bowing his head as if in prayer, he lowered his lips to that rarest of treasures and licked into her with a fervent hunger.

" _Gesù Cristo_ , Tres!" Caterina gasped, hips tilting, at once overwhelmed by sensation and yet urgently craving more. He responded only by increasing his activity, his name in her breathless voice the highest praise. Long fingers tangled in his hair, the voice of his mistress loud as wetness coated his stroking fingers and his questing tongue. He sealed his mouth over the delicate bundle of nerves the data placed so much import on, suckling gently before licking a hard stripe up and over the tender little bud. Caterina shuddered so he recalculated the pressure and repeated the gesture. Her hips arched off the bed, hands releasing him to tangle in the bedsheets.

"Request performance review, Duchess of Milan," he asked, and if his voice sounded any rougher than usual his auditory sensors were not equipped to perceive it.

Her response was a high, breathy whimper, a sound he had never heard from her before - it was doubtful anyone had. "Don't stop, _fanculo! ...Mio angelo_ , please don't stop."

He did not. He repeated the motion, running the rough slickness of his tongue over the crux of her, over and over till she cried out, bucking under his hands, warmth and sweet liquid flowing over his tongue and dribbling down his chin. He was not designed for modesty, and so did not understand her low moan when she glanced down and saw him, coated in her essence, disheveled, robotic pupils dilated and absorbing the widest range of visual scans they could access.

_Progress report: Above average._

Caterina saw stars, all the splendors of the Vatican paling in comparison to the gold and white sparks behind her eyes as she cried out and melted beneath the ministrations of this, her most loyal knight. The sight of him was too much; obedient to a fault, all that laser focus drawn to her like a magnet. When her lashes fluttered and she became once more aware of her surroundings, she found herself cradled in Tres' arms, android as inscrutable as ever. And yet... There was something new, something sharp and glittering behind his eyes, the flicker of a flame that, once kindled, could never again be extinguished. Adam after the fall, taste of the forbidden fruit lingering on his lips. Without thinking, for once acting on the direction of lesser impulse, she raised a hand to his face, tracing the nobly crafted lines with her fingertips as she pressed her lips to his. For a moment, not queen and subject; merely lovers - if only for a moment.

He received her kiss with what looked for all the world like eagerness, holding her close to the hard lines of his perfectly sculpted body; Galatea to her Pygmalion, breathing in her life. She realized for the first time that he had removed his outer robe and draped her in it, heavy black fabric smelling of him - gunpowder and ozone, and the barest hint of well-kept metal - strangely comforting, heralding safety and silence. As he pressed her tightly against himself she was shocked to note his manufactured body's wholly natural response - the unmistakable hallmark of desire, firm against her hip.

"...Tres?" She bit her lip, unsure how to proceed.

"Your G-" Tres paused, blinked, artificial irises in their warm russet brown expanding as he observed the woman in his arms. "Caterina."

"Do you... Do you want me?" Her voice was small, hesitation causing an insidious trickle of anxiety at the back of her mind.

He was quiet for a moment, and she could almost hear him thinking, central processor already overtaxed by the evening's events. A night for surprises, apparently - she watched what could only be called a blush color his features, eyes canting to the side, for once breaking their trademark steadfast stare. "...Yes."

 _Wonders never cease._ Her body against him, sliding with insistent, distracting pressure against this... this  _organ_  that he had never before paid any mind, all but crashed his internal servers. Desire was an unfamiliar emotion; indeed, something that he was supposedly free from, and yet... His anatomy was equipped for such an act, it was merely his psyche that had been unequal to the task. Until now. Blue eyes gazed at him expectantly, awaiting some further action in the wake of his pronouncement.

"Four hundred forty-eight," he said, in lieu of apparently nothing.

Catherina blinked, thinking that perhaps his processors had finally begun to degrade beneath the undue stressors placed upon them. "I beg your pardon?"

Tres focused on her, pupils large and dark in his robotic eyes. "Four hundred and forty-eight kilograms." He clarified. "That is the discrepancy between your weight and my own." Even as he spoke, his hand glided down her side, thick fabric of his robes masking his intent until he gripped her thigh and, in one efficient motion, slid her atop him. The dark garment parted, sliding from her shoulders and revealing the idol in alabaster and gold resting atop him. Again, that alien emotion -  _desire_ \- rose up in a storm and threatened to overwhelm him.

Caterina gasped, flushing red at the insistent press between her thighs as she was placed unceremoniously astride her conquest. "I... What?" The friction was dizzying, making it hard to think. What should have been obvious escaped her, the thoughts floating away in gauzy undefined strands as she rocked her hips down, craving more contact.

"Placing your body beneath mine would present an unacceptable risk," Tres clarified, voice a little tight with what might have been strain. "I must ask you to... I..." His vocal processors failed, and he merely stared at her, expression nakedly yearning.  _Yearning,_ from this, her most dedicated soldier - free from every temptation save, apparently, one. "Caterina... Please."

Caterina bit her lip, hands gliding down his bared chest to the dark line of his uniform trousers; silver snap embossed with the AX crest catching her eye. She flicked it open, drawing the zipper down and raising her hips to expose him. Watching her, silent and waiting, his hungrily staring eyes reflected the light like an animal - or like the made man he was. Yet for it all he was... Just a man. _Perhaps more blessed than most,_ Caterina reflected with some trepidation as she encircled his shaft with slender fingers. Breath deserting him in a rush, Tres shut his eyes, hips canting into her touch; unquantifiable sensory data flooding in at too rapid a pace. The Duchess took advantage of his distraction, the absence of his eyes on her making her bold. Back curving in a graceful arc beneath the tickling fall of her golden hair, she licked the tip of his member, pious lips sealing in a hungry kiss over the reddened head.

"Duchess!" Tres gasped, half affronted at the very idea of it - his goddess, in such submission! Yet his artificial veins burned with an unfamiliar fire, and he ached to bury his hands in her hair and thrust up into her mouth. He tangled his hands in the bedsheets to resist the urge, strong fingers ripping the fabric of the coverlet to shreds as he curled them into fists. "Caterina, _please_ \- I... Am not equipped to tolerate this."

Releasing him with a pop -  _obscene_ \- she slithered back up to her original perch. "Perhaps another time we shall see exactly what you are equipped to tolerate, Tres Iqus." She murmured, looking rather pleased with herself. She raised herself up on taut thighs, slim hand stroking over the slick head of his cock.

The gaze he fixed on her was heavy-lidded and dark. "I am yours to command."

"Yes, you are." She agreed, confident - or presenting the appearance of it - at last. With a sigh - half lust, half contentment - she lowered her body, feeling the stretch and ripple of her inner muscles as, inch by inch, she adjusted to the invasion.

Tres fought the signals overwhelming his motor processors for as long as possible, finally giving in to the nearly painful need to grip her hips firmly and eradicate the last few inches between them. She welcomed his touch, but at the sudden joining he watched her flinch and felt something tear.

"Caterina!" And this was a genuine gasp, alarm and regret coloring his tone. "You... I... Why?" He lacked the required vocabulary to articulate his concern, to explain the archaic human construct with which he had only the most fleeting acquaintance. "I don't understand." He said helplessly, data banks at a loss.

The Duchess was panting shallowly, slumped over his chest as she adjusted to the sensation, inner walls slick but gripping him tightly. "I was raised in the priesthood," she explained quietly. "The idea of courtship or marriage was never an option for me."

"But..." Again, words failed him; available vocabulary inadequate to explain his feelings of _unworthiness,_ of insufficiency. He was not even a man.

"Because you are mine." She informed him firmly, raising her gaze to meet his. "You are mine."

It was a simple answer, the sort his mind craved. When she uttered a command, passed a judgment, there was no need for further consideration, for the wasting of valuable resources. Her word was simply law, a reality that made him feel secure with his place in the world. "Yes, your Grace-" he replied, voice stuttering out in a moan when she rolled her hips into his, beginning the ancient dance that, for such unlikely lovers, was entirely new.

A mechanical man, Tres was gifted with stamina to outmatch virtually all of his organic counterparts. But every man, no matter his origin or specific gifts, has a breaking point. His came when Caterina tensed above him, her spine curving elegantly as if welcoming judgment from heaven, head tossed back as she let out a high, arching cry. His processors struggled to keep up, to make some sense of the sensations flooding his receptors, of the feedback rushing outward, but the overtaxed system failed and for a long moment, all was white - what sounded like his own voice but couldn't possibly have been, crying out as if in pain or abject pleasure.

The thing he adored most about Cardinal Sforza was her appreciation for silence - no, more specifically, her ability to refrain from speaking if there was nothing of relevance to say. When his servers had rebooted and he became aware of his location once more, he found Caterina curled into his side, breathing softly but not yet asleep. He drew her closer with one arm, brushing tumbling strands of gold from her eyes.

"Request performance review, Duchess of Milan." He asked, tone a little strained. Tres was a being who wanted for nothing, all he required for existence readily provided by the summons and oversight of the Vatican. Yet he desperately wanted to return here again, to once more feel her in his arms after the light of day dismissed him to the outer world. A willing tool in the hands of a skilled mistress, she was all he wanted and he, for once, had been able to provide her with something she did not already have. Satisfaction was a deep, still well; a warm glow. The Maiden and the Magdalene all at once; she had given him his life and taught him to live. He resolved to await her summons with patience, loyalty and faith. 

Caterina tried to hide her smile, but he felt the curve of her tempting lips as she buried her face in his side. "Perfectly adequate, Tres. You may expect occasional missions like this one in the future, I think." 

_Mission complete. Progress report: Excellent._

 

 


End file.
